Foreign Dispatches

On the Tottenham Riots

As you may be aware, the last two days have seen serious bouts of rioting occur in various parts of London. The instigation for the rioting was the shooting to death of a certain Mark Duggan, whose questionable acquaintances in life, and alleged behavior towards the police before being shot, certainly make him seem a less than entirely sympathetic victim. Even if Mark Duggan were the angelic figure that circumstances indicate he was far from being, it is also impossible to accept that the appropriate response to even the most unjustifiable shooting is to engage in large-scale looting, arson, stone-throwing and other acts of mayhem under the guise of expressing one's anger at the police.

The riots of the last two days cannot and should not be excused, and those who participated in them should be held accountable for their actions, but here's the thing: despite the utter wrong-headedness of the rioters' deeds, and the dubious character of the individual in whose name they've gone about their lawlessness, there is in fact a germ of justification for their hostility towards the London Metropolitan Police, a justification which goes well beyond the death in an alleged firefight - and here I stress the word "alleged" - of one man with shady friends. The fact is that the London Metropolitan Police has a history of biased and heavy-handed policing which presumes guilt if you happen to be the wrong skin color, regardless of however much the evidence might be in your favor.

China's Real Estate Bubble

As is obvious to everyone by now, much of the Western world suffered from a real-estate bubble over the last decade, and the consequences of the bursting of said bubble are still with us today in the form of low-growth; it isn't out of the question that the malaise of slow-growth which accompanied the bursting of Japan's bubble at the end of the 1980s might also now plague much of the West for a long-time going forward, especially given the need to reduce public debt. Still, for all of the above, the problems in Europe and America seem readily manageable when compared with the scale of the bubble that has arisen in China, as Nourel Roubini explains.

China's real-estate bubble can seem like an abstract problem of economic theory when put across in polite conversation as in the video above, but the following video should bring home just how massive the misallocation of resources has been.

The Chinese government may hold vast quantities of foreign reserves, but given the scale of bad debt which is building up within the country, and the lack of political legitimacy of the government which has allowed it to happen, even $2.5 trillion will likely prove insufficient to staunch the upsurge of discontent which will occur when this bubble bursts - and burst it will, as they always do.

Nonsense in the Netherlands

No one who has read this blog over the years can accuse me of having closed my eyes to the problems which have accompanied large-scale Muslim immigration to Europe, but there's a clear divide between taking sensible measures to contain a problem before it gets out of hand and pandering to the rawest prejudice - a line which Geert Wilders and his Freedom Party have marched right past.

Under current law the third generation children of immigrants in Holland are classified as Dutch, in terms of government statistics and entitlements, as long as both their parents were born there.

But the anti-Muslim Freedom Party is concerned that by treating the grandchildren of immigrants as Dutch, 80 per cent of whom are under 10 years old, it will stop being possible to measure their integration.

Why Mandatory Voting is a Bad Idea

One of the axioms of modern political journalism is that anything that encourages greater participation in the political process is a good idea by definition, and any measure which permits marginalized voices to be heard with greater force is by necessity a positive thing. Left unchallenged is the assumption that all voices are indeed worth hearing, however stupid, extreme or uninformed, and that allowing the indifferent, the insane and the ignorant to speak will not simply end up with them drowning out the voices of those with more knowledge and better judgment. The thinking seems to be that since history teaches us that outright dictatorship is bad, more participation is always better, and if only we could properly divine the true "will of the people", all problems in political life would quickly melt away.

Shocker: Hugo Chavez is a Crook!

Who would ever have believed that our sainted Leader of the Bolivarian revolution(©) was just another thief bent on maximizing state power to his own ends? And yet here is the Guardian (of all papers) indicating as much.

[Wilmer] Azuaje has blown the whistle on what he claims is a kleptocratic dynasty in Barinas where farms, businesses, banks and government contracts have been pocketed by the president's parents and five brothers.

The Folly of European Monetary Union

It's hardly ever the case that I agree with Paul Krugman about anything, but the subject of the Euro is one such rare instance.

Lately, financial news has been dominated by reports from Greece and other nations on the European periphery [...] I’ve been troubled by reporting that focuses almost exclusively on European debts and deficits, conveying the impression that it’s all about government profligacy [...] For the truth is that lack of fiscal discipline isn’t the whole, or even the main, source of Europe’s troubles [...] No, the real story behind the euromess lies not in the profligacy of politicians but in the arrogance of elites — specifically, the policy elites who pushed Europe into adopting a single currency well before the continent was ready for such an experiment.

Another Year, Another Japanese Apology

One of the topics I've visited on here multiple times in the past is the never-ending arguments Japan has with Korea and China over its alleged refusal to apologize for crimes committed during the heyday of Japanese colonialism - never mind that such claims are as false as can be. At any rate, it seems that the latest Japanese government is back in the apology game, with Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada being the latest politician to engage in the obligatory groveling, directed on this occasion to Korea. Knowing how prone to amnesia Korean nationalists can be when it comes to Japanese apologies, it will be interesting to see just how long it takes after this apology before the next future outburst of rage from the Korean peninsula over Japan's supposed lack of contrition (or, when such critics are pressed on the facts, the "insufficient sincerity" of said contrition) ...

PS: What did I tell you? That didn't take long! The Hankyoreh's editorial staff exceed even the capacious limits of my cynicism: apparently the Korean meaning of Japanese "sincerity" is agreeing to any and every demand Koreans happen to make,  including sovereignty over the Liancourt Rocks.

Protest in North Korea?

The normally cowed North Korean populace is finally daring to speak out against the communist regime, after being pushed to the wall by the latest currency devaluation - or at least, so claims a certain Claudia Rosett in this Forbes article. 

No Minarets in Switzerland

As you might have heard, the citizens of Switzerland have just passed a constitutional amendment banning the construction of minarets in their country. In light of the lopsided margin by which the amendment passed (57% voted in favor it), there can be little doubt that it represents the opinion of the majority of Swiss adults in a clearly "democratic" manner; furthermore, it is clear that out of all the world's major religions, Islam presents unique difficulties for any state which wishes to retain the values of enlightenment liberalism and openness: as such, the decision of the Swiss public cannot simply be dismissed out of hand as an act of knee-jerk reaction.  And yet, just having said all of the preceding, I cannot allow any doubt to remain on one point, which is that I consider this Swiss resolution to be a colossal act of foolishness.

Sarah Palin Supporters are Uninformed

And that is putting it mildly.

Seeing as this video was put out by an outfit calling itself "New Left Media", it is natural to harbor suspicions about the objectivity of what one is seeing: for all one knows, these guys could have thrown out all of the material showing Palin backers in a more favorable light, leaving only the clips portraying "Sarah Barracuda" fans as ignorant, paranoid, xenophobic dopes parroting ridiculous right-wing propaganda.

Still, given what we know of Sarah Palin's intellectual abilities (marginal) and ideological coherence (non-existent), there is every reason to believe that this video isn't far off the mark. If anything, the video seems to suggest that Sarah Palin has a lot more female support than she actually does, as if her primary support consisted of women engaging in the shallowest form of identity politics; most of the former governor's support actually comes from conservative males, and when one takes this odd gender skew into consideration, I think its pretty clear that neither policy considerations nor a perception of fitness for office have much to do with Palin's appeal. Let's just say Palin wouldn't have any "base" to speak of were there not so many sexually frustrated men out there ...